When It Arrived

For Lucie Brock-Broido

It was delivered to me in the snow.

The kids were all sleeping
in separate corners of the house
like unfound crystals.

I wiped the flakes off,
holding what I thought could save me.
My neighbors were afraid

I was disappearing. The branches above
trembled with hidden birds.
I didn’t know. I read and kept reading
the label

until you heard me.

Source: Poetry (January 2020)